Whole Foods goes to Madagascar

The grocer teams with a Brooklyn chocolatier to aid cocoa farmers.

Fifteen Whole Foods employees will travel to Madagascar to build a water system for families who own cocoa farms in the country.

Whole Foods is planting its flag in Madagascar—that is, at least 15 of its employees will be there in September building a water system for 400 families who own cocoa farms in the tiny African nation.

The initiative is a result of the grocer's relationship with Brooklyn-based Madécasse, a chocolate manufacturer that produces chocolate bars and vanilla extract in Madagascar to help feed the local economy, and sells them in Whole Foods' stores across the country for $6 each.

"Whole Foods likes what we are doing in Madagascar," said Madécasse co-founder and Chief Executive Tim McCollum, whose company creates higher-paying manufacturing jobs in the country. Whole Foods' foundation is organizing the trip. "Very few Americans get to visit the country because it's very far off the beaten path," he said.

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Madécasse expects to exceed $3 million in revenue this year and is expanding its product line to include chocolate for baking.